The beginning of November rolled around, but it was still raining out. Desmond sat against the back of the couch, with Lucy slouched over on his shoulder, sleeping. In his lap was the laptop he rarely ever got to use when she was around. Sitting on the table beside him was a mug of tea. Spattering against the window was mildly-heavy rainfall. The drops were relaxing him as he cruised around on YouTube, looking up old videos posted by his father following the war's end. Nothing fancy, of course, but enough to catch the attention of the world. Enough to ensure everyone knew what Abstergo was all about.

Against his arm, Lucy stirred and whispered his name in her sleep. He looked down at her with a smile, and then leaned forward, pressing his lips up against her forehead. As he pulled back, he brushed a few strands of her beautiful blonde hair aside with his fingertips. She sighed, and rubbed her face against his bicep.

His grinned widened a bit as he decided to wrap up the evening's computer use by checking his email. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be moving from the couch for the night, other than to check that the doors were locked and to use the bathroom one last time. His grin faded a bit as he remembered the mild bit of conflict that had sometimes caused between him and Christine, the owner of Bad Weather. He'd always had to have made the last thing before bed a trip to the bathroom, or else he'd soon be up again running back to it. A symptom of what his mother had lovingly-self-diagnosed as being a mild form of OCD.

Desmond's eyes rolled almost involuntarily, as they did frequently whenever his parents or something to do with them came into his thoughts. He knew he shouldn't. After all, they were taking very good care of him. And now Lucy, as well. His father had been awfully quick to forgive Lucy after they'd pulled her out of Abstergo's remains (even if the other Assassins hadn't all been so), which had surprised Desmond, prepared as he was to go down hard defending her. His mother had offered little to no comment on the situation, attributing Lucy's change of heart to an ingrained sense of rightness and justice that no amount of her bitterness towards the Assassins for her "unfortunate position in life" could remove...

An honest-enough assessment of the situation, if only in intent, Desmond supposed. But he couldn't get past his mother's downplaying of the situation as being an "unfortunate position in life". It was a blatant rearranging of the story to put her and his father's decisions in a more positive light, and he couldn't stand that type of pretentious horseshit.

His email loaded up, eventually, while he absentmindedly sipped at his tea and wondered what kind it was. Lucy had brewed it for him on the stove top. He shrugged, and drained a considerable gulp of it before setting it back down on the side table.

The very first thing his eyes fell on was an email from his mother, labeled: "Thanksgiving"...

Reflecting on the irony, he shuddered, and clicked it open to see what it was all about, although he was pretty sure he already knew...

Hi, honey.

Your father and I are thinking about staying at the spa for the last week of November. To celebrate the holiday with you and Lucy. We need the time away, and I daresay you'll both want some company, with Shaun and Rebecca getting ready to trek off to see her family. I talked to Shaun about it yesterday, in fact. Since most of his own family are dead (and the rest that aren't are estranged from him for his wild conspiracy theories back in the day), he's agreed that Rebecca's been away from home long enough, now. And I would certainly say so! Will any of the Stillmans be joining us for this occasion? If so, can you tell me what they like! I'll bring a dish!

Hopefully, the two of you are doing a bit better than you were the last time I talked to you. I know you're a grown man now, and you've certainly earned it by every imaginable standard, but... try to be nicer to Lucy about the situation. More understanding. She loves you, and she's trying very hard, Desmond.

I'm sure you'll both get it sorted out. We'll see you in three weeks! Let me know about Lucy's family!

Love,

Mom

Reading this put Desmond in an immediately-jumpy mood. Since his encounter with Lucy in the men's steam room at work, she hadn't been back with him. And as the time passed, he started to find himself behind the fucking desk every weekend. All pretenses of it being an "every-once-in-a-while-thing" had been totally dropped. The regular didn't want to work so frequently all the time, and he didn't need to, to be honest. So, with Desmond there, and usually eager enough for the time and the money... it had expanded more in his direction.

Before Lucy's arrival, he would have been happy about that. Life hadn't been riveting since his return to New York, but while he'd been okay with that initially, it had been starting to catch up with him. The fact now, though, was that Lucy was now there with him, and it was beginning to take a mild toll on their relationship. A relationship that was born out of strained circumstances, to begin with.

He looked down at her sleeping form, and was reminded both involuntarily and unpleasantly that they were in the position they were in because he'd accepted time that upcoming weekend, and she hadn't liked it, and the whole thing had turned into a mild argument. Shaun and Rebecca would soon be skipping out on her for almost a month, the concept of which she was NOT handling very well. But whenever Desmond offered to bring her with, she cited her worries about him losing his job (that she obviously hated, and he hadn't ever hesitated to point that out) as being the reason why she always declined. In truth, he knew she just wanted to spend the time with Rebecca.

Desmond wondered idly as he closed the laptop and set it on the coffee table in front of him what Shaun was thinking of this whole thing. Back when he and Lucy had been so painfully separated, Desmond and Shaun had eventually grown quite close. He noticed Shaun had that quality about him. Something that was off-puttingly charming. After a while, one could sense that Shaun wasn't as emotionless as he liked to pretend, and when he asked them about it (as he always eventually did), it would be easy and comforting enough just to let it out.

Lucy, for example, had trusted Shaun with her feelings about Desmond. And Desmond wondered, as he kissed her head again and pulled the blanket that had slid to her feet up tighter around her, what the conversation had been about and how it had turned in that direction. Shaun had neatly dodged answering Desmond's question the one time he'd said anything about it to him before, but Desmond was sure there was... an interesting side to this story. Frequently, whenever Lucy or Shaun were involved in anything just on their own, there was a layer of mystery. The two of them together would be a movie.

Desmond chuckled as he slid out from under Lucy and went to check the doors and windows. They were all shut. But as he wandered into the bathroom to use it, his mind turned to his parents. They were really, REALLY going to come and do this whole family charade for Thanksgiving. On the one hand, he'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't at least partially-interesting in seeing them. He loved them, and they loved him, and Lucy fit well into that combination.

Obviously, he thought bitterly, if my mom feels free to comment on our relationship like that...

But, if he was honest with himself, he was glad about that, too. He just didn't know what to do with the situation. He didn't sense any serious problems with their relationship, but he knew something was up. She'd been spending so much more time with Rebecca lately, and seemed to be disinterested in him and what was going on with him...

It hadn't really affected their sex and other physical affections, though. When they kissed, her arms wound tightly and eagerly around his neck and shoulders. Her lips moved quickly, like they were craving his. They often sat on the couch together, or went places with each other. They kept each other within a general reach, and talked freely and smoothly. When they made love or performed favors for each other, she looked into his eyes with wide, innocent stares, as if hoping she was doing it right for him. Almost begging for his approval...

She showed a consistent desire to please him outside of the bedroom, as well. She still made him breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. She confided in him her troubles with missing her family, or even problems she had occasionally had with Rebecca... She did his laundry sometimes, too. And he'd heard her on the phone saying things like, "I wonder if Desmond would like that" or, "Do you think Desmond would like that on me"...

And he felt like shit, too, because he'd taken it out of her a couple of times. He'd always made up for it, but there was just something about losing his patience with her he didn't like about himself. He wasn't usually a mean person, since his days in the Animus, but he'd been known to be cutting before. In the bar, Christine and his friends had sometimes had to just let it roll from their backs, because if they took it too seriously, they'd be hurt badly by it. But Lucy had never really seen that side of him... She didn't often understand what it was that was even bothering him to begin with, or how she figured into it. Especially to deserve him yelling at her like that...

He sighed, and flushed the toilet. "Get a grip on yourself and the situation, Desmond," he muttered as he set out to shut all the lights off.

And when they were all off, he returned to Lucy, who had curled up slightly in his absence to pull her knees into her chest. He smiled weakly at the sight of it, and then climbed in next to her. She, like always, reacted to his presence. She pressed herself further into him, and he tightened his arms around her.

"I love you," he whispered, quietly. "And I'm so sorry so, so much for forgetting that, sometimes." He played with a strand of her hair. "You're beautiful, you know, Luce... Inside and out." He again kissed her head, this time on her temple. "Thank you for giving me chances to make it right. I promise I will."

The rain spattering against the window drew his attention up. The sound was relaxing him greatly...

"I love you," he repeated to Lucy, as the room began to darken with his closing eyelids. "Goodnight..."

And then he fell into sleep, the warm form of Lucy huddled protectively into him in every way he could imagine, want, or ask for.